Imported Asian Oysters Stir Debate On Chesapeake Bay - ENN

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"Seafood-industry officials believe the Asian Suminoe oysters could revive a fishery that's been nearly wiped out by pollution and disease, but environmentalists worry that the newcomers could crowd out native Eastern oysters and upset a food chain that supports striped bass and other sport fish.

An alphabet soup of state and federal agencies is studying the issue, and until they're done, only a few watermen like Harding can grow the oyster in tightly controlled experiments using sterile stock that can't reproduce. Oysters were once so plentiful in the bay that Colonial-era ships had to steer around the massive reefs that stuck out above the waterline. After the Civil War, the bay echoed with rifle shots as watermen fought over beds that provided the world with 40 percent of its oysters.

The area around Harding's oyster beds, where the Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake, saw up to six murders each week in the 1890s, according to "The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay," a history of the conflict. Overfishing led to a steady decline in harvests throughout the 20th century, but as recently as 1980 the Chesapeake still accounted for half of the all oysters pulled from U.S. waters.

Then two diseases, Dermo and MSX, took hold. Development along the Bay's 12,000 miles of shoreline brought increased pollution. Now the Bay only accounts for about 3 percent of the U.S. harvest and Louisiana leads the nation in oyster production. In 2004, a Maryland state official characterized the state's oyster fishery as "virtually nonexistent."

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